Blonde

  “Oh!—I’m so sorry.”

  “And smaller items, stuffed animals my sister sews. My sister who is blind.” Henri spoke with quiet vehemence, stealing a glance at Norma Jeane as one might steal a glance at the audience behind a row of lights.

  “Oh? Blind? You have a—blind sister?”

  “Yes, and she’s a gifted seamstress, sewing animals purely by touch.”

  “And these were stolen, too?”

  “Five of them. Plus the other items. And the window smashed. I’ve explained it all to the police. Not that they will ever apprehend the thieves, I don’t expect it. The cowards!”

  Norma Jeane wasn’t sure if Henri meant the thieves or the police. She said hesitantly, “But you have insurance?”

  Henri said indignantly, “Well. I should hope, miss, that I do have insurance. I’m not a complete fool.”

  “That’s g-good, then.”

  “Yes. It’s good. But it doesn’t alleviate the shock to my nerves, and my sister’s, and it doesn’t restore my faith in human nature.”

  Norma Jeane removed the little striped tiger from her shoulder bag. Trying not to notice how Henri stared at her, she said quickly, “This—I found it in an alley behind my building. I live just around the corner. I guess it’s yours?”

  “Why, yes—”

  Henri was staring at her, blinking. His parchment-pale face darkened just perceptibly with blood.

  “I f-found it. On the ground. I thought it m-must belong to you. But I’d like to buy it? I mean—if it isn’t too expensive?”

  Henri stared at Norma Jeane for a long wordless moment. She could not fathom what he was thinking any more than, she guessed, he could fathom what she must be thinking.

  “The striped tiger?” he said. “It’s one of my sister’s specialties.”

  “It’s soiled, a little. That’s why I’d like to buy it. I mean”—Norma Jeane laughed nervously—“you probably couldn’t sell it now. And it’s so beautiful.”

  She was holding out the little striped tiger in both her hands, for Henri to see. Norma Jeane was standing in front of the counter, only a foot or so from him, but he made no motion to take it from her. He worked his mouth, considering. He was shorter than Norma Jeane by several inches, a carved-looking little man with large black-button eyes, jutting ears and elbows. “Miss, you’re a good person. You have a good heart. I’ll let you have the tiger for—” Henri paused, smiling, a more genuine smile now, seeing Norma Jeane perhaps as younger than she was, in her early twenties, a student actor or dancer, a pretty but unexceptional girl with a round boneless innocent face, her skin pasty without makeup. In flat-heeled shoes she looked both busty and boyish. So lacking in self-confidence and presence, she would never succeed in show business. “—ten dollars. Marked down from fifteen.”

  The little price tag on the tiger, which Henri seemed to have forgotten, indicated, in pencil, $8.98.

  Quickly, relieved, Norma Jeane smiled and took out her wallet. “No, Mr. Henri! Thank you. But the toy is for my first baby, and I want to pay the full price.”

  THE VISION

  Always, Norma Jeane would remember.

  They’d gone for one of their nighttime drives. A romantic southern-California late-summer nighttime drive. In the lime-green Caddy with its broad grinning chrome grille and fluted fins. Like the prow of a boat the chrome grille and front fenders crested the waves of a shadowy light-splotched sea. Cass Chaplin, Eddy G, and their Norma. So much in love! Pregnancy made Norma even more beautiful; her lovely skin glowed, her eyes were bright, clear, lucid, and intelligent. Pregnancy made the beautiful young men more beautiful too. More mysterious, secretive. For no one would know of their secret until they wished to disclose it. Until Norma wished to disclose it. All three were inclined to be dreamy and dazed, contemplating the impending birth. Laughing aloud, catching one another’s eyes. Was it real? Yes, it was real. It was real real real. “Not the movies,” Cass cautioned them, “but real life.” Eddy G had joined AA, and Cass was considering. It was a grave step, to surrender drinking! But if he still had his drugs? Or would that be cheating? Eddy G wisely reckoned that, if there was ever any right time for him to go on the wagon, as his old man had done, not once but many times, well, it was now. With dull amazement he said, “I’m not getting any younger. Or any healthier.”

  Norma Jeane’s doctor had calculated she was five weeks pregnant; the baby would be born in mid-April. He told her she was in excellent health. Her only ailment was her heavy menstrual flow and its attendant pain, but she would not be menstruating now. What a blessing! “Just that is worth it. No wonder I’m so happy.” She was sleeping reasonably soundly and without barbiturates. She was exercising. She was eating a half-dozen small meals a day, a preponderance of grains and fruits, hungrily, with only occasional nausea. She could not eat red meat and she abhorred fat. “Little Momma” they called her teasingly, no more “Little Fishie” (at least to Norma’s face). Truly they were in awe of her! They did adore her. The female point of the indissoluble triangle. She’d been fearful, yes certainly it had passed through her head that both her young lovers might abandon her, yet they had not, and seemingly would not. For never had the men been truly in love with any of the numerous girls and young women they’d impregnated, or were led to believe they’d impregnated; never had any girl or young woman of their intimate acquaintance declined the possibility of an abortion. Norma was different; Norma was like no other.

  Maybe we were afraid of her, too. We were starting to understand we didn’t know her.

  Cass was driving, swinging the Caddy along near-deserted streets by moonlight. Norma Jeane, cuddling between her handsome young lovers, had never felt so content. Never so happy. She’d taken Cass’s hand, and Eddy G’s hand, and was pressing their moist palms, with her own, against her belly where Baby was growing. “One day soon, we’ll feel his heartbeat. Just wait!” They’d been cruising north on La Cienega. Past Olympic Boulevard, past Wilshire. At Beverly, Norma Jeane supposed Cass would turn east to bring them home. But instead he continued north, to Sunset Boulevard. The car radio was playing romantic music of the forties. “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” “I’ll Be Loving You Always.” A five-minute news break, the top story, about another girl found sexually abused, murdered, a naked body, “an aspiring actress-model” from Venice missing for several days and at last found wrapped in a tarpaulin on the beach beyond the Santa Monica pier. Norma Jeane listened, transfixed. Eddy G deftly changed the station. This was not new news: the story had broken the previous day. The girl was no one Norma Jeane knew. No name she’d ever heard before. Eddy G found another pop station where Perry Como was singing “The Object of My Affection.” He whistled along with it, huddling against Norma Jeane’s body, which seemed to him so restful now, so consoling and warm.

  Strange: Norma Jeane had never told Cass and Eddy G about HENRI’S TOYS. Though the Gemini had vowed to share all things and to have no secrets from one another.

  “Cass, where are you taking us? I want to go home. Baby’s so sleepy.”

  “This is a vision for Baby to see. Just wait.”

  There seemed to be some understanding between him and Eddy G. Norma Jeane was starting to feel uneasy. And so sleepy. Like Baby was sucking her down into him, into his quiet lightless space that predated all time. Before the universe began. I was. And you with me.

  They were at Sunset and turning east. This part of the city Norma Jeane dreaded from years ago, her trolley rides to The Studio for classes and for auditions and on the morning she was informed her contract had been terminated. Always on Sunset Boulevard there was traffic. A steady stream of cars like vessels borne upon the River Styx. (How did you pronounce “Styx”? Just—“sticks”? Norma Jeane would ask Cass, sometime.) And now began the succession of brightly illuminated billboards passing overhead. Movies! Movie-star faces! And there, most spectacular of all, the towering billboard for Niagara, across whose width of perhaps thirty feet stretched the platinum-blond female lea
d, her voluptuous body, beautiful taunting face, and suggestive red-glistening parted lips so riveting it had become an L.A. joke how traffic slowed and some vehicles came to a stop altogether.

  Norma Jeane had seen Niagara posters, of course. Yet she’d avoided seeing this infamous billboard.

  Eddy G said, in a thrilled voice, “Norma! You can look or not, but—”

  Cass cut in: “—there she is. ‘Marilyn.’”

  “Marilyn”

  1953–1958

  “FAMOUS”

  You must construct a circle mentally, a circle of light and attention. You must not allow your concentration to go beyond it. If your control begins to lessen you must withdraw quickly to a smaller circle.

  —Stanislavski,

  An Actor Prepares

  This new year of wonders 1953. Never could Norma Jeane have believed. The year “Marilyn Monroe” became a star and the year Norma Jeane became pregnant.

  “I’m so happy! All my dreams have come true.”

  Breaking upon her like the harsh stinging surf on the beach at Santa Monica when she’d been a child. She remembered vividly as if it had been yesterday. But now soon she would be a mother herself, and her soul healed. Now soon she would silence that metronome voice.

  Wherever you are, I’m there. Even before you get to the place where you are going. I’m already there, waiting.

  “I can’t take the role. I’m sorry. . . . Yes, I know it’s ‘once-in-a-lifetime.’ But so is everything.”

  The role of Lorelei Lee in Anita Loos’s musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. A long-running Broadway musical The Studio had purchased for Marilyn Monroe, who since Niagara was now their highest-grossing actress. “And you’re turning it down?” her agent asked incredulously. “Marilyn. I don’t believe you.”

  Marilyn. I don’t believe you. Norma Jeane shaped the prissy words in silence. Too bad she was alone, neither Cass nor Eddy G to laugh with her. She didn’t reply. Her agent was speaking rapidly. Here was a man who knew her only as Marilyn. And he feared and disliked her. He didn’t love her as I. E. Shinn had loved her. “Rin Tin Tin” she called him behind his back, for he was an eager bristling barking kind of man, an old-young man, fiercely ambitious and clever without being intelligent; Rin Tin Tin was slavish to people in power and bossy and imperial with others, the young women in his office, clerks and waiters and taxi drivers. How had it happened that the formidable I. E. Shinn was gone, and in his place—Rin Tin Tin? How can I trust you? You don’t love me.

  Now Marilyn Monroe had become what was called “famous,” Norma Jeane could trust no one who hadn’t known her previously and who hadn’t loved her then. Cass Chaplin had warned her they’d be swarming over her like lice. Cass had said, “My father’s favorite saying is, ‘When you’ve got millions of dollars, you’ve got millions of friends.’” Norma Jeane would never have millions of dollars but “fame” was perceived as a kind of fortune, to be spent at whim. “Fame” was wildfire no one could control, even the studio bosses who were taking credit for it. Bouquets of flowers from these men! Invitations to lunch, dinner. Parties at their lavish Beverly Hills homes. Yet still they think I’m a tramp.

  At the party following the Niagara premiere, Norma Jeane, who certainly wasn’t Rose but who’d had several glasses of champagne, had said in Rose’s mocking undertone to the bat-faced Z, Do you remember that day in September 1947? I was just a girl. I was so scared! I hadn’t yet been given my Studio name. You invited me to your office apartment to see your collection of stuffed dead birds—your “aviary.” Do you remember hurting me, Mr. Z? Do you remember making me bleed, Mr. Z? On my hands and knees, Mr. Z? Do you remember screaming at me, Mr. Z? Years ago. And then you dropped my contract, Mr. Z? Do you remember?

  Z stared at Norma Jeane and shook his puzzled head, no. He licked his lips; his dentures shone uneasily. Though his face was a bat’s face, the oddly granular texture of his skin, especially his chafed-looking scalp, was a lizard’s. Now shaking his head no, no. The cruel yellow-tinged eyes opaque.

  You don’t? You don’t remember?

  I’m afraid I do not, Miss Monroe.

  The blood on your white fur rug, you don’t remember?

  I’m afraid I do not, Miss Monroe. I have no white fur rug.

  Did you kill Debra Mae, too? Did you cut up her body, afterward?

  But Z had already turned away. Another powerful lizard man had drawn his attention. He hadn’t heard Norma Jeane’s words in the fierce furious voice of Rose Loomis. And the celebration was too festive. Voices, laughter, a Negro jazz combo. Now was hardly the time for a settling of accounts with the enemy. For others were crowding near, eager to congratulate Marilyn Monroe on her success. Niagara was a B-feature, low-budget and swiftly filmed, and it would make lots of money on its investment, so now it was a good idea for Norma Jeane to swallow her bitterness and smile, smile, smile prettily as Marilyn.

  Though wanting so badly to clutch at Z’s tuxedo sleeve and confront him. Except a sober warning voice intervened.

  No! Don’t. That is a thing Gladys would do. At such a time, before witnesses. But you who are Marilyn Monroe will not do such a thing because you are not sick like me.

  In this way the dangerous moment passed. Norma Jeane began to breathe more calmly. She would recall afterward her surprise and relief that Gladys had given her such good advice. Surely, this was a turning point in both their lives! To know that she wished me well and not ill. To know she was happy for me.

  There was Rin Tin Tin at her side. Bristling-proud as if he’d invented her.

  Rin Tin Tin was taller than Rumpelstiltskin by several inches, and not deformed in the upper back, and his sleek oiled head was an ordinary man’s head, not overlarge or subtly misshapen. His eyes were the eyes of an ordinary avaricious man; there was even a wayward streak of kindness in him sudden as a sneeze, a quick boyish-hopeful smile. Yet still that underlying fear and distrust of his blond actress client who’d become, overnight it seemed, famous. Like all business associates of suddenly successful actors, Rin Tin Tin worried that his client would be stolen from him by someone like himself only more so. Norma Jeane missed Mr. Shinn! At such public occasions, his absence swept upon her like a whiff of scraped plates, dumped garbage from a kitchen behind the scenes. It did not seem possible that I. E. Shinn was gone and these other dwarfs continued to exist. And Norma Jeane continued to exist. If Isaac were here, he would see that Norma Jeane was becoming uneasy, made anxious by having to smile at strangers; she was drinking too much, out of nerves, and these effusive compliments and congratulations only confused her, who needed to be admonished for having failed to do the very best work of which she was capable.

  Fear your admirers! Talk of your art only with those who can tell you the truth. So the great Stanislavski warned.

  Now she was surrounded by admirers. Or such was the pretense.

  Mr. Shinn would have stood with Norma Jeane in a corner, shrewd canny Rumpelstiltskin making her laugh with his wicked sarcasm and droll asides. He would be shocked to hear of her pregnancy—furious at first, for if there was anyone he disliked more than Cass Chaplin, it was Eddy G. Robinson, Jr.; he knew nothing of how the Gemini had saved Norma Jeane’s life—yet within a few days, Norma Jeane was certain, he’d have been happy for her. What the Fair Princess wants, that shall the Fair Princess be granted.

  “—on the line? Marilyn?”

  Norma Jeane was wakened from her trance by an annoying little radio voice. No, a telephone voice. She’d been half lying on a sofa and the telephone receiver had fallen beside her. Both her warm moist palms were pressed against the pit of her belly, where Baby slept his secret wordless sleep.

  Norma Jeane lifted the receiver, confused. “Y-yes? What?”

  It was Rin Tin Tin. She’d forgotten him. When had he called? This was so embarrassing! Rin Tin Tin asking was something wrong and calling her Marilyn as if he had the right. “No. Nothing is wrong. What did you want?”

  “Will you l
isten, please? You’ve never done musical comedy before, and this is a fantastic opportunity. The deal is—”

  “Musical comedy? I can’t sing, and I can’t dance.”

  Rin Tin Tin barked with laughter. Wasn’t his client fun-ny! The next Carole Lombard.

  He said, “You’ve been taking lessons, and everybody at The Studio I’ve spoken with says you’re”—he paused, searching for the right, plausible term—“very promising. A natural talent.”

  It was true: a childlike joyous energy seemed to suffuse her, when she wasn’t herself but in music. Dancing, singing! And now she had something truly to be happy about. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Not now.”

  There was a sharp intake of incensed doggy breath. Panting.

  “Not now? Why not now? Marilyn Monroe is the newest box-office star now.”

  “My private life.”

  “Marilyn, what? I didn’t quite hear.”

  “My p-private life. I have my own life! I’m not just—a thing in the movies.”

  Rin Tin Tin chose not to hear this. That had been a trick of Rumpelstiltskin’s too. He said eagerly, as if this were news just handed to him in a telegram, “Z has purchased Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for you. He doesn’t want Carol Channing from the Broadway production, though she made the musical a hit. He wants it as a showcase for you, Marilyn.”

  A showcase! For what?

  Casually Norma Jeane said, stroking her belly as Rose might have done, the tight rounded just-perceptible swelling that was Baby, “How much would I get?”

  Rin Tin Tin paused. “Your contract salary. Fifteen hundred a week.”

  “How many weeks?”

  “They estimate about twelve.”

  “And how much would Jane Russell get?”

  Again Rin Tin Tin paused. He must have been surprised that Norma Jeane, who seemed so vague and distant and distracted, so uninterested in Hollywood trade gossip, claiming not even to read most of the publicity explosion about Marilyn Monroe, would know not only that Jane Russell was to costar in the film but that a query about Jane Russell’s salary would be painful to her agent.